Fain Under Fire, Open Letter to Elon, Apple AI

Paul J Daly: 0:14

Good morning. It's Tuesday, June 11. And we have some fun stuff to talk about. But we have some, you know, potentially engaging things to talk about today, as we talked about Fang under fire an open letter to Elon Musk. People really want to know, an apple and AI, or Apple intelligence, I guess we're gonna call it now. Our goal is to get just to get to Apple intelligence, to which 30% of our audience rolls their eyes and say, just get an Android. Who cares? Andrew had that all the

‍Kyle Mountsier: 0:49

entirety of our overseas audiences, like, What are you even talking about? Yeah,

Paul J Daly: 0:53

right. Android had those features a year ago,

Kyle Mountsier: 0:55

right. That's

Paul J Daly: 0:55

how it usually are like 2018. So good, so good. Hey, good morning. Today, I want to let's say, first and foremost, we have an upcoming webinar, we set it yesterday, circle your calendar on June 26, at 2pm, Eastern, for a webinar with our friends at activator. These are our Quick Shot soda wedge webinars. They're a lot of fun, we keep it moving. It feels almost like a morning show. But we learned some things get insights into some unique data, talk some dealers, so this one is reawakening your dealership, overcoming industry challenges from the COVID como we're gonna call it, but we're going to talk about, you know, understanding and some data of the shift in consumer behaviors. We're going to talk about how to leverage your own data, not relying on other people's data. And always walk away from these things just kind of like engaged in learning, which is the point of a webinar, right?

Kyle Mountsier: 1:48

Yeah, that's exactly that just so if you haven't been to one of our webinars before, we keep it to 30 minutes short, sweet, but right to the point we get right after it, we say the things that need to be said and get out. Because we know your days and your day is busy, you need to get on with it. So that's why we've we've kind of shortened the format, just to make it really accessible to get in and learn.

Paul J Daly: 2:06

That's right. That's right. I've also been talking about this, all our breakout sessions are from a soda con, are on our YouTube channel now. So tube ASOTU dot B. E, we also released a new one of our soda concessions, which is the podcast we recorded live at ASOTU. CON. And basically this one's great from strict to empathetic with Don Hall, the unreasonable hospitality auto auction. Wait, wait a minute, look. Wait a minute. I'm the show notes. And they're not matching when I'm looking out in screen. Tell us what's going on Kyle?

Kyle Mountsier: 2:40

No, no, that's so I don't know, if you if you know about this auto auction, that that is just like, literally the best social media profile for an auto auction in the country. Yes. Yeah. So they are all about some more than cars, some unreasonable hospitality. So yeah, I think

Paul J Daly: 3:06

that they can say and we're to admit, we're releasing two ASOTU CON sessions a day now. So basically, the best thing for you to do is to just go to your podcast platform and search ASOTU CON sessions. And that way, you'll see all the new things that are that are coming out. These are my favorite, by the way. Yeah. And Nathan's typing furiously in our show notes. Right. Right.

Kyle Mountsier: 3:26

To give us the better lead off. No, you got to check out you got to check out the the one I think you actually did though, the one with Bianca. Right. Or what did that

Paul J Daly: 3:36

that was actually an impromptu one because whoever I was going to be podcasting with in that slot was like late. And I said, Okay, well, we were late, I guess. So who's in the there's probably like 50 people sitting watching. I was like I who we get to talk to and ad blocker was there. And they're new to the asoto community. And basically, we connected over a post I had made about unreasonable hospitality, the book, and she made a comment and I let her know she should come to a soda con and then found out about her auto auction and they brought their like a huge team out. They actually went ended up going to New York City and eating at 11 Madison Park, too. So that's a real sob story, right? Yes.

Kyle Mountsier: 4:14

That's the story right there.

Paul J Daly: 4:15

Oh, well, let's get in some news because we got a couple of stories that may be a little interesting today, UAW president you know who he is Sean Fain. He is now under investigation for alleged retaliation against other union leaders raising significant concerns within the organization. Basically, the there's an independent federal monitor. His name's Neil Barofsky. He's investigating claims that UAW secretary treasurer, Margaret Mach, alleged retaliation for her refusal to authorize certain expenditures basically said she didn't authorize expenditure. There's retaliation. Fein is also accusing, facing accusations of retaliating against rich Boyer who is the leader of the Union still Lantis department And Fein took over Boyers duties and the end of May. And the complaints allege that the change came because boy refuse to engage in acts of financial misconduct to benefit others, according to the court filings. Yeah, this is some serious stuff, actually. So, the Fed independent federal monitor Barofsky, his probe began in February and has faced what they're calling document turnover delay. So basically, of the 116,000 relevant documents they've requested. Only about 2600 have been turned over and reviewed with the Department of Justice and justice alleging that the union's position is making it difficult, if not impossible, for the monitor to fulfill his mandate to remove fraud, corruption, and illegality within the UAW fain responded, quote, taking our union in a new direction means sometimes you have to rock the boat, and that upsets some people who want to keep the status quo

Kyle Mountsier: 5:56

okay,

Paul J Daly: 5:56

we put the Whoa in status quo by Yeah,

Kyle Mountsier: 5:59

I'm just gonna I'm gonna tread lightly here is my tread lightly is. It is clear that Fein has rocked the boat over the last year. True how far he has rocked it is yet to be determined. But it seems little Nicaea

Paul J Daly: 6:16

Yeah, I mean, it I mean, without a doubt, man, the union business as a contact sport. Full full on. So what we'll let the people who get to the bottom of things like this, get to the bottom of things like this. We're just reporting the news as it comes out.

Kyle Mountsier: 6:31

I guess I guess that one over and see how you feel about it. Speaking

Paul J Daly: 6:35

of seeing how you feel about it, definitely gonna be feelings about this one on both sides. I think both sides. Here we go. So a Hague partners has published an open letter to Elon, Elon CEO, Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, urging him to consider a strategic partnership with dealers to propel Tesla into its next growth phase. They argue that the partnership could transform Tesla's market position and profitability. Basically, they kind of went through this. And they outlined the benefits of going with the dealer network, including, like a better buying experience, because dealers can provide in person support. And you know, a lot of people don't want to do things online as well as trade and financing for people with less than stellar credit. also said they could expand service center availability, right now, Tesla only has like 2000 service centers when they probably should have like 10,000, or whatever that that number is. They said they could get higher margins, because dealer could add profitability and added benefits. You know, dealers would pay for a lot of this, so it wouldn't require any capital from Tesla. And so they also mentioned like Robo taxi fleets. And if there are these fleets then, you know, we can have dealers and Service Centers who could service these things. So basically saying we can help you scale your business. Here's a quote from the letter Ilan, you have become one of the most successful entrepreneurs in history, you've taken us over the roads under the roads out to space, and other places few could have ever imagined. dealers have been adding value to the auto industry for over 100 years and partnering with these entrepreneurs could enhance Tesla's customer experience and provide Tesla with massive benefits.

Kyle Mountsier: 8:14

Man, there's there's a couple things that I want to say about this. First is one, kudos to the hog partners for putting this out there. And, and standing by the dealer and its ability to do well for automakers. i It's summary. Like, I think that that is an important construct of what we do as an industry. And it's an important piece of what we do here at a soda as well. My, my unfortunate disagreement here, and maybe just challenge to Hey, partners, and really to dealers, if you're listening to this is I don't honestly know, if as a franchise industry, we're prepared and capable of assuming the technology requirements, training requirements, you know, integration expectations of the Tesla consumer experience, both from sales and service. And so I like I'm just not even sure if a large enough swath of dealers is ready for this type of engagement from an entrepreneur to make sense. Right. Right. To make sense, right. I think that there's a very small sliver, right. Yeah,

Paul J Daly: 9:29

we got 5%. No, I

Kyle Mountsier: 9:31

don't even think it's 5%. I honestly think it's less than 1% of dealers that are capable of engaging with the consumer, the technology, the integration at that level of sophistication, that level of sophistication and not like, unless it's like created an entirely separate business unit. Yeah. Because the current status of technology of even just like accounting principles, have customer service is? It's honestly not even on the same planet, which is sad for me to say, but it's also why we exist or like, No, we have to challenge the status quo. Because right now we're not ready to engage at this level.

Paul J Daly: 10:14

Yeah, that's but it's so I mean, those are super fair points I was driving in this morning with with my son miles. And we were talking about this specifically. And, and from technology aside, I made a post yesterday about like canceling an order for a cyber truck. And the technology involved in it was just so like, seemed like it was unlike anything I've ever experienced how easily it worked. But also you think of the training mechanisms that would need to be put in place even to like prepare and Tesla wanting to separate their brand. A lot of hurdles, actually, and I think one of the biggest hurdles is, is Elon himself, alright, he does just doesn't play well with others. And like, that's why one of the reasons why he's so successful because he said, we're going to do it our way. And we're going to move pivot on a dime. And we're going to make these big decisions. Like, I don't know that, that there's a lot of people lining up to get like under his purview, like if you think it's challenging, sometimes dealing with Ford, or the Lantis, or Munoz or any of these cats, like wait till Elon walks in the room? Because it looks like six

Kyle Mountsier: 11:15

grand off. Yeah. But Ryan wants to know, done. Yeah.

Paul J Daly: 11:19

And so like what I said two miles in the car here, I said, like, I feel like this is very similar. Like, while Elon is CEO of Tesla, I can never see this happening. It's almost like if jobs is ahead of Apple, but if they get a Tim Cook, I can see like meaningful steps being taking to start to integrate this gigantic distribution network of, you know, franchise dealership networks and things like that. But man, what, one way or another what an amazing thought starter, this letter to the editor is and I think this is going to spur a lot of meaningful conversation.

Kyle Mountsier: 11:50

Well, it's gonna, it's going to spur this conversation that says, What is the gap to this actually happened? Like, why would Elon and Tesla not adopt this strategy? Because there's a gap to them adopting the strategy who wouldn't want to reduce expenses reduce capex? Increase margins like people invest in facilities for you invest in facilities, broader service network? Who wouldn't want that

Paul J Daly: 12:13

as books of business? Absolutely, period.

Kyle Mountsier: 12:16

But if there's a gap to doing it, there's a reason why Elon hasn't said yes, already.

Paul J Daly: 12:20

Yeah. Speaking of saying yes to something. Finally segway on an iPhone.

Kyle Mountsier: 12:27

You didn't watch it you should. Apple's WWDC keynote revealed yesterday, a bunch of enhancements to their operating systems. But the most particular and long awaited AI advancements for its devices have been announced, enhancing user experiences across their various platforms, they are naming it tongue in cheek, Lee, in my opinion, Apple intelligence hijack the whole they just they're like Apple intelligence is AI, it's over. The there's a few big things and so we'll we'll talk about them. But simply, in the announcements, there were a lot of integrations and net new things and things like mail, messages, photos, a bunch of different apps. Some cool features like scheduled texts, satellite SMS messaging, tap back options across all of your emojis, and even RCS support, which if you don't know what that is, basically, it's rich context for messages that aren't in messages. So now you're going to be able to get all your documents and your images to Android friends a little bit easier. All that type of stuff. But the big announcement, Paul, and was all along the AI and they've actually that there's two big things that they're doing. The first one is, is actually integrating with models, they haven't created their their own models for AI. So the majority of it is integrating other models, again to their Siri platform, which I think is a great move it actually remember

Paul J Daly: 14:05

what happened when they created their own maps.

Kyle Mountsier: 14:09

Right, but But I think what it does is it actually puts them in the hardware position more like an NVIDIA where they're where they're making the chips that enable this deep level of integration, a

Paul J Daly: 14:19

couple of bucks in that these days. Yep.

Kyle Mountsier: 14:21

The next piece is that is that they are that they are bringing the the model into the device for an added level of security. So it's not actually a cloud based model. They're they're integrating it into the software and hardware, leveraging the silicon chips, so it's only going to be available on any and on any processor on any phones that have the M one processor which is the iPhone 15 and future because it needs that processing power to maintain the speed of apps. And then they're they're creating a cloud network that is local device secured still in the cloud, for additional computing power for larger tasks,

Paul J Daly: 15:07

so let's you know, apparently right like, namely private device now, yes, I mean, extremely, this could be a big, big solution, even for open AI, as there are all these privacy concerns that constantly come up. And it's not a company that has really built like any kind of legacy of trust. So far, actually, just the opposite. So Apple, people trust Apple to be one of the most fanatical about protecting the privacy of their users. So I think this could be really good for open AI, as well. I'm looking forward to some of like, some of the real basic features and integrations. Number one, Siri working a lot better. But even things like, you know, informal, informal schedules, like if you and I are texting, we're like, Hey, are we going to meet it? You know, tomorrow at three, you're like, yes, it's all good to know that I want to do that block it off in my account, like all these personal assistant type AI integrations, I think you're gonna be really, it's kind of there was this video of back from the 80s of somebody, I can't remember what was called. It was like, when they were dreaming up like what the iPad could be. And it had this assistant. Like, I feel like we're there now. Like, literally, this is going to be the thing that makes that commercial reality where the guy wakes up, and he's got his coffee. And it's like an eight minute commercial, right? Like these days, they would figure how to do it in 30 seconds, but, but it was all the things that we want apple to do for us, or we want our devices to do for us in a very practical way,

Kyle Mountsier: 16:25

which and if you're wondering how and why this connects to auto other than the fact that we have so many of the industry uses iPhones every day is the the Apple ecosystem and the Android ecosystem for that matter are extensions of the vehicles capabilities these days. And so actually understanding how a phone integrates with the computers interactivity, because all of those app developers are going to be leveraging that those resources as well is going to be extremely important in your product knowledge and training.

Paul J Daly: 16:56

They go I mean, I think we did like a full three laps today. All the above John vain to Elon to Apple look, whatever you're doing out there. Pay attention what's going on in the world around you and use it to serve somebody

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